Monday, 07 November 2011 23:47
DEVELOPMENT DEFICIT
BY Sudarhan Chhotoray
For decades Odisha has been a home to refugees fromTibet, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
They came, took refuge and ultimately settled here. Both State and Union Governments extended helping hands to identify land and shelter for them but due to the absence of a policy for the development of the refugee population, they have neither been included among the beneficiaries of various Government development programmes nor are there any special projects to ensure their welfare.
But the most important issue is how far the locals areliving in harmony with the foreign settlers?
TIBETAN REFUGEES: A NATION IN EXILE
Recently, hundreds of Tibetan refugees marched in a rally in the streets of Berhampur in South Odisha to demonstrate against the Chinese occupation and invasion in Tibet and demanded to get back their homeland.
Over 93,000 Tibetans, who fled their country due to the Chinese invasion, are presently settled in India. They are making ends meet, but they wait for the day when they will be able to return home.
As for the people in exile, rightly referred to as the people of erstwhile Tibetan Kingdom, they have two different stories to tell now: Chinese invasion and occupation of Tibet in 1959 and their life in India since then. They traveled to India and sought refuge here. In the aftermath of the Chinese occupation, the temporal and spiritual head of Tibet 14th Dalailama was forced to leave his homeland and take asylum in India. Soon 85,000 Tibetans followed him and made their way to India, Nepal and Bhutan.
The Government of India arranged for their temporary stay in transit camps and road side camps in the Himalayas, and slowly absorbed them in batches in agricultural settlements in different States of India.
The settlements are meant to provide secure food, shelter, medical care, education and means of livelihood to enable them to develop into economically self-supporting communities, while keeping their culture intact during their period of exile.
A large number of Buddhist monasteries help preserve the Tibetan culture. Cultural groups such as Lingadro, Opera and Gyashay too helped maintaining the traditional Tibetan culture.
“Besides celebrating the Indian Independence Day and the Republic Day, they celebrate Tibetan New Year, Tibetan National Uprising day, Birth
Anniversary of His Holiness Dalailama and Tibetan Democracy Day,” says an activist working with PREM, a local NGO.
The hope of making it back to their homeland is, however, shrinking. According to the Home Department of the Government of India, at present there are about 93,100 Tibetan refugees in India. Out of them, at least 68,639 refugees have got resettled under agriculture, handicraft and self-employment schemes with Government assistance.
However, without the determination and willingness of the settlers themselves, no amount of external aids would have made lasting impacts.
CHANDRAGIRI
According to Chandragiri Tibetan Refugees’ Settlement secretary Thoten, “Chandragiri, situated 280 km from Bhubaneswar in Gajapati district of South Odisha, and its surroundings were once a dense forest area and no human beings dared venture out even in the daytime for fear of wild animals. Today it has become a “maize bowl” and a centre of attraction for Tibetan handmade artifacts, Tibetan dogs, ‘Apso’ and Buddhist monasteries.”
With a population of more than 3,800 in 600 households (divided into five camps) spread over 1,000 hectares; it is accessible and has a good communication network. The settlement is called “Phuntsokling”, which literary means “abode of plenty and happiness”. It was set up in 1963 by the Government of India in collaboration with the State Government to resettle 2,479 Tibetan refugees, who had come into India immediately after the Chinese occupation of Tibet. The Chandragiri settlement was established in two phases. In mid-1963, 585 people arrived from road camps of Chamba, Dalhousie and Bomdila, and those who came between 1964 and 1967 were rehabilitated in the second phase.
The story of Chandragiri has changed over the years. Kuchha houses made of mud-plastered bamboo walls with sheet roofing were ready onlyfor those who came in the first phase. Land had to be cleared for agriculture and housing. Assisted by the State Government, AECTR, Swiss Technical Co-operation and with settler-labourers, land clearing and reclamation work was started in 1963.
This was the most difficult period for the settlers. Coming from an entirely different climatic and cultural context, adapting to the tropical climate was difficult and it took a toll on mental and physical energies. All of them were poor and penniless. They were supported with rations for the first two years and were later expectedto support themselves through farming. Unfamiliar with tropical farming which was entirely different from traditional methods practiced in Tibet, the settlers could not produce enough even to feed themselves. With increasing population, the cultivable land leased out by the Government was inadequate to produce sufficient food for all families. Many families were forced to get into seasonal petty business on pavements of Indian cities and towns. Many of them sold woolen garments in winter. Some women earned a small daily income by weaving traditional Tibetan hand-knotted woolen carpets. Gradually, this became their permanent sources of income.
Assistance was sought from the Swiss Technical Co-operation. It boughta fleet of tractors, conducted workshops and taught modern farming methods besides introducing maize cultivation. It helped clear fields of tree stumps, constructed a series of check-dams to conserve run-off water, built a large grain storage facility in each of the five camps and set up a carpet weaving centre. By the end of 1968, land-clearing work, reclamation, house-construction, well-digging, constructing check dams and so on had been completed. The settlers were paid in rations.
“The houses built with mud-plastered bamboo and tiles are congested. Many inhabitants suffer from tuberculosis and acute respiratory tract infections,” said a local medical practitioner. The families do not have proper drinking water facilities. They draw water from open wells and hand-made pumps. Health services are provided by a small centre managed by an allopathic doctor, supported by a Tibetan doctor who administers Tibetan herbal medicines. The local primary health centre too provides health services to the Tibetans.
Recently, the Danish Government has encouraged Tibetan farmers to take up vegetable cultivation. It has aided a three-year agriculture development project with the aim of developing a diversified livelihood system in the settlement and to arrest the exodus of people to cities. The Tibetans have in fact generated some wage employment for the local tribal population as well. Barring a few minor incidents, there have never been any communal clashes.
SRI LANKAN SETTLERS
According to the Union Home Ministry sources, on November 30, 1999, about 66,000 Sri Lankan refugees were staying in 130 refugee camps in Tamil Nadu and one in Odisha. About 96,421 refugees were staying outside the camps. They were granted temporary staying facilities by the Government of India on humanitarian grounds, awaiting improvement of the situation in their country. Between January 20, 1992, and March20, 1995, seeing the gradual normalization of the situation in Sri Lanka, the Government of India air-lifted and repatriated nearly 55,000 refugees. Due to troubled conditions there and lack of willingness of the refugees to go back, the repatriation process could not be completed. Despite the strict vigil and repatriation efforts, the arrival of Tamil refugees to India continued even after disbanding of LTTE. Reports available with Government agencies said at least 463 people came to India in 1998, 769 in 1999 and more than 1,000 in the year 2000 and thousands thereafter.
The trend is still continuing. Odisha was the home for thousands of Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka. Out of them, at least 72 Tamil refugee families were staying in Odisha till 2006 and about 1,540 families were sent back in due course.
Though the district Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) was looking after their problems, it ran into trouble due to lack of funds. Still hundreds of them have made Odisha as their second home.
They have been shuttling between Tamilnadu and Odisha since then. Although the district administration is all set to support refugees and claims that nothing is wrong with their presence, the local people and politicians do not feel the same way. A local youth organisation distributed handbills which spoke about the arrival of more Tamiliansto Odisha. They could control the locally available natural resources, encroach upon more cultivable land and make local people their slaves as it has happened in the past by Bengali refugees, the handbills said.
They further said that in 1961, the Government brought 12,000 Bengali refugees to Odisha in the name of rehabilitation. About 75 per cent of thick forest was cleared for them and of this 45 per cent fertile lands were given to them. Besides all this, the refugees started enjoying Government facilities, as their names were included in the scheduled caste list.
Local residents expressed anguish over the Government’s identification of this tribal area for refugee settlement. Tiku Gomango said, “Bengali refugees should have been rehabilitated in Bengali speaking States like West Bengal or Tripura. Similarly, Sri Lankan Tamilians should have been resettled in Tamil Nadu. Why were they brought to Odisha, a backward and economically weak region, where we are fighting to make ends meet?”
(The writer is a senior freelance journalist)
Published in the daily THE PIONEER, BHUBANESWAR ON 8TH NOVEMBER 2011
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